


survival mechanisms

by scarletite



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Shifter Bella, Twilight Renaissance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:27:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23696953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletite/pseuds/scarletite
Summary: In which DNA trumps distance and our bodies hold on to random traits for a reason.There's a wolf in her bloodline and it remembers the taste of home.[AU: After an incident in Arizona, Bella Swan moves in with Charlie in Forks, and has to learn what it means to have a beast in her soul. More importantly, what this means for her relationship with the Cullens. Because, in any universe, she's destined for them. ]
Relationships: Rosalie Hale/Bella Swan
Comments: 33
Kudos: 256





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm moving into an era of self-indulgent, write-what-you-want-to-read stories. Not that I haven't always done that, but I'm trying not to leave ideas on the cutting room floor because they've been 'done to death'. This concept has been _calling my name_. 
> 
> Also, I haven't read the books in 100 years, so I'm going to play fast/loose with canon on this one.
> 
> Definitely out of character Bella, I would say. Because having a spirit animal isn't just a cool teenage fad, it's a family trait and comes with all the associated issues.

Bella spends an hour in the bathroom, that first morning.

She showers, water so hot it's scalding. She scrubs harshly, with soap that smells like musk and rainy days, because they haven't had a chance to pick her up anything yet. The water pressure is better than she's used to. It pelts her skin. She stands under its assault for so long, the water runs cold. She keeps her eyes closed. It feels like standing in a hail storm.

It can't last forever. The whining of the fan above the shower is grating in her ears, and she can hear Charlie hovering awkwardly in the hall, probably working up the courage to knock. She knows he's worried. A part of her, which she buries somewhere in her chest like a rock, wonders if he's _scared_. She wouldn't blame him. She is, too.

She leaves the bathroom, still toweling her hair dry. She deliberately doesn't look in the vanity mirror as she passes.

"Morning, Dad," she says softly, giving him a half-smile.

Charlie jumps a little, hand still half-raised to knock. "Bella! I'm about to head off to work." He pauses for a moment, clears his throat. He belatedly remembers to drop his hand. "Will you be okay today? You don't need to push yourself into anything—"

"I'll be fine, Dad," Bella gently interrupts, a sudden swell of love rushing in her chest. He's so adorably awkward, but he cares and he's _trying_.

And this is new for both of them.

A week ago, she'd been relatively happy in Phoenix with—

Well, she'd been happy.

Deliberately, she shakes her head. "I'm going to take it easy, I promise."

His brow scrunches. "Bells, I still think Billy is right. This is so soon…"

"He also said a routine is good, it will keep me steady, focused." She bites her lip. "I won't let it happen again, Dad."

Something like alarm shoots across Charlie's face. "You won't, Bells," he sets a hand on her shoulder, ignoring the wet patch her hair has left on her shirt. "You're tough, kiddo. You can do this. I just don't want you to get ahead of yourself."

"Thanks, Dad." She gives him a smile again, this one a shade more genuine. "It'll be okay."

"You'll do fantastic." He smiles. He has the same simple she does, on the right corner of their mouth. "But I'll keep my phone on, okay? If anything happens, or if you need to come home, you just let me know."

The tight ball in her stomach eases a little. "Okay."

"Okay," Charlie echoes. They stand there for a moment, awkwardness creeping in a little. He lets go of her shoulder, awkwardly scrubs a hand at the back of his neck. " _Okay_. Well, I better get to work. Drive safe, and have a great day at school, okay?"

Bella nods. "Be careful, Dad."

"Your old man always is," he chuckles, stepping around her and wandering towards the staircase. "See you tonight, Bells."

"Bye, Dad."

* * *

_"You are so much more than you were before,"_ Billy had told her. _"Too much, maybe. A force of nature, in all the ways that matter. It will get easier with time, but you can't tame an animal in a day."_

He was right.

She barely holds her shape through the day.

There are moments when her blood sizzles. It scorches and consumes, like magma through her veins. It makes her ache, quake, like her body is going to fall apart. It takes all her effort to contain it, to not spill a drop in a body full to bursting.

It starts with a boy named Mike Newton, with his wide-eyed stare and mutters of "damn girl, you're tall."

It's minor thing, a passing comment. 

She clenches her fist until her nails cut crescents in her palm. 

"I prefer Bella."

The cuts heal by the time she opens her fist. She wipes the blood on her pants.

* * *

She sinks in and out of classes.

She keeps her earbuds in, as often as she can, tucks them behind her hair so the teachers don't see.

Bella has always been a good student, but she can't focus. High schools are loud, she's always objectively known this, but the reality is staggering. It's deafening. The thumping of hearts, the tapping of feet, the cackling laughter. It grates in her ears, her nerves, like nails on a blackboard.

She turns her music up louder—something rock, with shrieking guitars and thrashing drums.

Turns it louder again, when the girl in front of her begins tapping her pencil.

She turns it so loud that the dark-haired boy beside her gives her weird looks.

It helps.

* * *

There is a girl, Angela.

Bella likes her immediately.

Angela walks with her from the class where they had sat as silent partners. She asks soft questions, about what Phoenix was like and how she likes Forks, but she doesn't push for answers and she doesn't take any offense to the lapses in Bella's attention. She is patient, kind, and every bit the friend she wishes she had back home. 

She invites Bella to sit with her at lunch, and beams when Bella agrees. 

"Here," Angela says, after they get their trays, sliding her a Tylenol and her apple juice. "You look like you've got a headache."

Irrationally touched, Bella takes them with a soft, "thanks."

Surprisingly, it does help. The overwhelming press of voices feels a little less stifling, and she manages to relax enough to finally take stock. She does an admirable job of following along with the story being told over the table, something about a pair of hikers that came into Mike's family shop, that he was pretty sure walked right out of Woodstock. 

Mike laughed, "I'm telling you, I could smell the weed from the parking lot, and neither one wore shoes."

She snorts, just slightly.

At her left side, that apparently is enough of a reaction to awaken the rest of them to her presence. 

"So, _Bella_ ," one of Angela's friends, Jess, starts in. "How is Forks treating you?"

"It's…wet."

"Welcome to Forks," Eric grins. "You'll get used to it."

She grimaces. "Not likely."

"Not so rainy in Arizona, huh?"

"Never."

Jess smirks softly, leaning in. "Well, Forks does have it's own unique flavors."

Bella squints at her.

"I present to you, our resident celebrities," Jess points over Bella's shoulder. "The Cullens. They're Dr. and Mrs Cullen's foster kids. They moved down here from Alaska, a few years ago now."

Bella turns her head, just in time to watch a group of the most beautiful people she's ever seen walk in.

They look fresh of the runway, all of them. Beautiful in a way that isn't normal.

"They keep mostly to themselves," Angela says, voice low.

"Yeah, because they're all together. Like, _together,_ together," Jess chimes in, flashing her a scandalized smile. "The big, dark-haired guy is Emmett, and the drop-dead gorgeous one, Edward—they're, like, a _thing_. A tragedy for women everywhere. Then, there's the short girl with the dark hair, Alice. She's…weird. And she's dating Jasper, the one who looks like he's in pain."

Bella watches them walk into the cafeteria like the own it, like they're on a runway.

There's something about them, something that makes her skin itch and a crawling feeling start in her spine. 

"Doctor Cullen's some sort of foster dad slash matchmaker," Jess continued, oblivious to her distraction.

Angela laughs a little. "Maybe he'll adopt me."

But there's one more, trailing behind her siblings and looking for all the world like she doesn't want to be anywhere near Forks High.

"Who's she?"

Jess looks. " _That_ ," she says, at length, "is Rosalie. Probably the most gorgeous girl to ever grace Forks. But she's got the worst attitude you've ever seen. She'll chew up anybody brave enough to speak to her. She's above all of us."

She speaks with all the certainty of someone who's tried, and been scorned.

Bella watches the blonde flick her hair over her shoulder, hears a muffled scoff, almost in response. But she's too far away, there's no way she would have heard them whispering over the roar of the cafeteria. 

Even though she's scowling, Rosalie is still the prettiest girl she's ever seen.

Her eyes follow her all the way to the table, where she sits down with the rest of her family.

The five of them talk, but it's so quiet Bella can't make out what they're saying. It infuriates her, for some strange reason.

The boy, Edward, suddenly looks back at her.

They hold the eye contact for a moment, his frown matching hers.

"Don't waste your time," Jessica says. "They'll never give you the time of day."

"Yeah," Bella responds, as something she can't name scratches at the back of her skull, "I wasn't planning on it."

It takes her another moment to look away.

* * *

Biology is where things fall apart.

It is the last class of her day, a mere fifty-minutes between herself and freedom. It should be a breeze, considering she'd been well ahead in her class back in Phoenix. She's only one period away from fresh air, and counting the seconds down.

But, when she steps into the class, all the air leaves her lungs.

A low, wounded noise drops from her lips.

There, across the room, Edward Cullen sits.

The windows are open behind him, letting the light and breeze from inside in.

Bella's standing in front of an oscillating fan. 

Each of them catch each other's full scent at the same time, and they freeze in their tracks. 

To Bella, it's like the time her mother dyed her hair and didn't turn the extractor fan on.

It's like bleach, pure and burning in every sense of the word. It's a shock against her system, and she visibly recoils.

What it is, she doesn't know. But something deep and snarling inside her does, and all at once her blood roars in her ears.

Suddenly, the world narrows down to a tunnel, and all she can see, all she can smell, is him.

Edward sits up sharply, grimacing like he smells something foul, and she _sees_ his eyes shift from amber to pitch black.

Her wrist throbs.

Her soul knows, before her brain does.

And suddenly, startlingly, it comes in sharp relief.

The Cullens.

Their scent, their attitude, their color.

Her teeth bare. 

She can feel it coming, scrabbling and clawing to get out. The piece of her soul that loves these lands, these people, even if she doesn't know it yet. It fights tooth and nail against the scent of the monsters its sworn to hunt. It howls inside of her.

Her spine tingles, her jaw aches, her hands fist themselves in her own hair to try and restrain it.

Her Biology teacher opens his mouth, "Ah, Miss Swan—"

" _No_ ," she hears Edward hiss, too low for a human to hear, barely audible over the sound of something snarling inside of her. "Not here!"

Her voice takes her by surprise, pained, rough. "I need to go!"

Bella bursts back into the hall, backpedaling frantically.

She stumbles blindly, hot and sluggish and shaking down to her very soul.

"Miss Swan!"

Bella doesn't hear her teacher shout after her, not over the sound of her own heaving breaths.

She barely makes it into the trees outside before she explodes out of her own skin.

* * *

She doesn't go back to school.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Charlie Swan is a good Dad, Billy Black cares far too much, and Bella is just muddling along as best she can.

It's half-eight when Bella noses the back door open.

Charlie is standing in the kitchen, peering into the empty fridge and scratching his mustache. He looks up at the clicking of claws on the floorboards. He jumps when he comes face-to-face, or face-to-chest, with a giant wolf. "Ow, sh—shoot!" He grimaces, rubbing his stubbed toe and muttering curses at the cupboard. He squints up at Bella. "Yeah, that's going to take some getting used to."

The chestnut-colored wolf whines softly, nosing at his shoulder.

"I'm fine." Charlie slams the fridge shut, grimacing when his daughter flinches at the sudden noise. "Sorry, sorry. You hungry?"

Bella's head raises, tail wagging softly.

Since her first shift, she's been absolutely ravenous. It's like living with a teenage boy, Charlie had joked more than once. Any time food is offered, the answer is always yes. She's never not hungry.

"Pizza okay? Extra large, extra meat?"

Her tail wags faster, slapping the cupboards loudly. 

"Alright, alright, noted." Charlie picks up the phone off the counter. "Go clean yourself up, Bells. I don't want to find sticks all through the house again."

It turns out that a wolf can roll their eyes.

* * *

Charlie is already two slices deep by the time Bella thumps down the stairs.

He is tucked up on his usual armchair, TV remote in one hand and a half-eaten slice in the other. He's watching hockey. Brow scrunching, he turns the volume up higher on the TV. It's just in time for someone to get slammed loudly into the baseboards, a frantic fist-fight breaking out on the ice. 

Bella grimaces. Hockey is far too violent for her tastes.

Even so, she settles down on the sofa next to him. "Good pizza?"

Charlie blinks, looking down at the box guiltily, perhaps realizing it would have been polite to wait for her. "I got you a plate?"

"Thanks, Dad," she laughs.

Bella wastes no time loading up the paper plate with four enormous slices. The smell of bacon, sausage and cheese is absolutely divine. As if suddenly reminded she hasn't eaten in the last two hours, her stomach growls. Loud.

So loud, Charlie glances over at her. "So, busy day?"

"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

"Same old Forks," Charlie shrugs. "Probably a lot more boring than what you get up to."

She shakes her head. "Not unless you want to listen to the thoughts of three teenage boys for fun."

"They better be treating you right." Her dad frowns sharply. "That Uley boy, especially. I don't like all this 'alpha' talk. Power over others like that, doesn't sit right with me."

"Sam is…a bit overbearing, but he means well."

"If he tries to pressure you into anything, you tell me, okay?" Charlie replies. "I've got a gun and a hunting licence. I'm not afraid to put the hurt on him."

Bella doesn't doubt he would march down to La Push tomorrow, if Sam ever did anything to her. He may have embraced the wolfish part of her, but that doesn't mean he blindly accepts every part of it. He's a police officer, interrogating suspects—or, in this case, well meaning but annoying Quileutes—is what he's used to.

It's a warm, fuzzy feeling in her chest to realize just how much he cares.

"By the way, Angela dropped off some homework for you, I put it on your desk." Charlie wipes grease from his mouth with his wrist. Ew, men. "I like that girl. Lovely family, too."

Bella smiles, even though she feels irrationally guilty. "Yeah, she seemed nice."

She wonders what Angela, and the rest of Forks High, think of her. She was there for a total of less than eight hours, before stumbling out of school like a madwoman and dropping off the map for a week. Necessarily, of course. But not exactly a stunning introduction.

Charlie has covered for her, though. With help from Billy and a doctor from the Reservation, who apparently knows enough about the wolves to write a blank doctor's note. 

As if picking up on her thoughts, Charlie speaks up. "Do they think you'll be ready to go back to school soon?"

"I think so," Bella takes a vicious bite out of her own pizza, chews thoughtfully. "Sam doesn't want me to miss too much school. Education is important. But he's worried it could set me back."

Humming, Charlie swallows his own bite. "You know, you never did say what set you off…"

"I wish I could tell you, Dad," Bella says softly, regretfully. "But it's not my secret to tell."

And it’s not, Charlie already knows more than the Tribe wants to tell him. But this secret is not hers, it’s a pact written with the Cullens—stay out of their land, do not harm humans, do not reveal each other. Her throat sticks with the thought of it.

Her father looks at her, frown scrunching his forehead. The severe look does not suit him. It ages him somehow, makes him look worn, tired.

His eyes are brown, so much like hers, and his light crows feet pinch when he squints at her.

A long moment passes.

She sighs. "I'm sorry, Dad."

"I _trust_ you, Bella." It's said simply, openly. "If there's trouble, you'll tell me?"

She would do anything for Charlie. "I promise."

"Then that's all I need to know."

* * *

Later that night, Bella frowns thoughtfully at her bedroom ceiling, mind swimming with the events of the last few days.

It had taken her almost a full day to be able to turn back, after everything. She had left behind Forks High, her belongings and her truck, without a thought. She had torn blindly through the woods, led only by her nose, her ears and her rapidly-beating heart.

Her wolf had taken her to thick woods and sandy beaches and modest timber houses.

It had taken her to a place it called home, even if she did not know it yet.

She still remembers Billy Black's smiling face, his warm eyes, and the smell of sickness around him. She had climbed up onto his porch on tentative legs, sat slowly beside him, as he gazed onto his yard in the afternoon sun.

* * *

_"Bella," Billy greets, setting down his sandwich. "You're early."_

_She lets out a low rumble, setting herself on her haunches._

_Even sitting, she's taller than Billy is. Her tail rakes angrily side-to-side, ears back, heart still thudding like a bass drum._

_He considers her for a long moment. Takes in her coiled posture, the obvious distress flitting over her face. Then, he gestures out into the yard. "What do you see, when you look around La Push?"_

_Unable to answer, she looks out at the forest and the gravel road, silent._

_It is a beautiful place, she thinks. So much land, still preserved and pristine._

_"Do you know what I see?" he asks. "I see a place worth protecting."_

_She quirks her head at him._

_"All my life, I dreamed of being a wolf. We call them guardians, or protectors. They keep us safe."_ _Billy looks out at the treetops, wearing a thousand-yard stare. "I remember my grandfather and his friends, they were the last wolves we had until recently. I only saw them once, but they were the most amazing thing I had ever seen, the stuff of legends."_

_Bella closes her eyes for a moment, wondering what that's like—to grow up in this life, in this place, to have their history written not just in her blood but in her upbringing. Wonders, absently, if that would have saved her heartache._

_"I grew up knowing our legends were real, that magic was real. I wanted to be a wolf so desperately, to be as majestic and strong as they were. Like superheroes." Billy smiles wistfully. "I never shifted, never had a reason to. I used to think it was unfair, that I never got my chance, that it would have been better somehow if I had. Now, I know the real curse is having watch others change."_

_Her tail starts to slow, her frayed nerves easing._

_"Being a wolf is not an easy life, Bella. But I don't have to tell you that."_

_Bella ducks her head, looks away from his dark eyes._

_As a reminder, her forepaw throbs, in a patch where fur grows thinly._

_"It will be hard, now, to live a normal life. Now that the Cold Ones—vampires, you might call them—" Bella flinches, growling slightly, "—have returned, there will be more wolves. You're not the first, and you won't be the last."_

_There is nothing but deep, aching grief in his voice._

_He reaches out slowly to her, and Bella allows him to set a hand on her forehead._

_"I'm old, Bella. Getting older." He shakes his head. "But you won't. You'll be frozen in time, just like the Cullens. That is the curse that they lay on us, just by being here."_

_Bella whines._

_"But, you won't be alone."_

_Suddenly, a voice comes into sharp relief in the back of her head. It is strong, solid, infused with both joy and despair at the connection. He is there, his thoughts and feelings and everything, like a whole new life sparking into existence on the edge of her own._

_Her head picks up, a low whine coming out of her, as she looks sharply around._

_I'm Sam, the voice introduces. Welcome, Bella._

_Billy pats her head again._ _"You are Pack now, Bella. It's time for your to learn what that means."_

* * *

Bella huffs, rolling over onto her stomach and smothering a sigh into her pillow.

She has learned a lot, these last few days. Too much, maybe. Enough that when she lays down, her thoughts race with it, head full to bursting. 

It's already Saturday, and she needs to make a choice about school soon. 

Sam seems to think she's ready to go back, although he's been pushing her extra hard to make sure. He's been running her along their borders every day, to learn what land is theirs, and now hers. He's taken her right to the edge, let her drink in lungfuls of that burning smell, until her teeth no longer snap and snarl. 

Jared, to his credit, doesn't care too much. He's content with thinking _better you than me_.

But Paul, every time it's brought up, snarls so loudly it echoes through their bond.

He has seen behind her eyes. They all have.

They know about Arizona, they know about the Cullens, they know every path and pitfall that's lead her to La Push. 

And Paul _hates_ with a ferocity that is startling.

Bella has seen his thoughts, his imagination—daydreams of crossing the line, ripping the throats out of every vampire to fall across his path, from this end of the United States to the other. He burns with the desire to hunt them. His everything is tied up in it, so angry that even the ghost of it makes her blood burn hot. He roils with instinct and secondhand memories.

He doesn't understand why she would want to go back, to surround herself by them, alone.

_You really want to go back there?_ Paul had bared his teeth at her, she remembers. _After everything those leeches do, you really want to 'give them a chance'?_

She remembers baring her own right back. _It's my choice._

_You're Pack,_ he had replied. _You don't get a choice._

That memory quickly falls apart into a whirlwind of teeth and fur. 

Even now, her neck twinges with the memory of canines sunk through it. She remembers the way Paul had shook her, after, like he wanted to tear the thoughts of returning straight out of her.

Bella had never been a fighter, but that day she had clawed and snapped and snarled at him like something possessed.

It had taken Sam to stop the fight. He had pressed them down into the dirt like chastened children, his yellow eyes unblinking and the weight of something incomprehensible behind his gaze. _Enough_ , he had snarled. The force of it enough to make them whimper. 

Eventually, he had released them, disappointment in his thoughts.

Paul had disappeared back to his home without looking back, conscious cutting off moments later.

Bella limped all the way home, thoughts caught up in a tangled web.

_None of us chose the life, but we can choose what we do with it now,_ she remembers Sam's final words, before she had allowed her aching body to shift back. _If you want to go back to Forks, I will speak with the Cullens._

And he had. 

For her, Sam had called their leader, Carlisle—their mortal enemy. 

He had put her needs above his own pride.

He had secured safe passage for her, an exception within the Treaty, to allow her free reign on their lands.

Bella breathes softly into her pillow, slow and steady and certain.

And, as she falls asleep, she resolves herself to go back to Forks High on Monday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure I didn't do Billy's character justice, but I was reading about his story, and it really resonated with me. He wanted so badly to be a wolf, to be the superhero that his grandfather was. But as he grew and had children, he realized how much of a curse it could be, and wanted nothing more than for his family to have a peaceful life.
> 
> I had feels.


End file.
